A Desperate Team

I was one to stick up for Jim Hendry, the GM of the Chicago Cubs, but I don't know so much about right now.

Yea its early, and yea, I still think we will win this division, or at least the wild card… but… Hendry over reacted to last years playoff sweep. This topic has been beaten to death, but Hendry really is pissing me off, and here are a few reasons.

1. We paid Fukudome A LOT of money to play ball in Chicago. After 1 year, Hendry lost hope on him and decided he needed a replacement.. hence the acquisition of Game board. Bradley may improve, but there is nothing telling me he is going to do what he did last year. Fukudome has gotten his act together and is one of the more consistent players on the Cubs, after 1 year in the league. People said don't acquire Bradley cause he is injury prone and has bad attitude: Well we have seen both this year, but minus the impressive offensive numbers. And Reed Johnson deserves more PT, great defender, and he works the count at the plate.

2. Bullpen problems. So after we molded Wood into a closer, we dump him. A guy who took salary cuts to be on the Cubs, a guy who will always consider himself a Cub.. and did a good job in his first year as a closer. It seemed OK at first cause we have Marmol right? WRONG. We acquire Gregg who sucks, case closed. Heilman, sucks. Patton, sucks. All new guys… good work Hendry and Piniella, we really made that better.

3. Peavy/Roberts. We have no backup infielders that are worth a damn. If we dumped a prospect or two and acquired Roberts, we would have a legit infield with legit backup players like Fontenot coming off the bench. Now, we don’t need starting pitcher so we say, but the Peavy deal almost getting done on the South side goes to show that Hendry needs to pull the trigger faster and quit playing games, 101 years, no more games. Peavy could have been on this ball club and got a few more wins under our belts. With Zambrano missing a couple starts, and now Harden on the DL, Peavy would have been a consistent Ace of the staff, and teams wouldn't know how to prepare for a 3 or 4 game series against the Cubs staff.

4. The Heart and Soul of this team are gone. Wood, a true Cub, DeRosa – enlisted a ton of energy and respect for this ball club and our fans, and Blanco – the veteran who was the glue of the battery whether he was playing or not. We miss these guys, especially the utility play of DeRosa, who can fill in at any position. Despite Woods troubles this year, he is better then Gregg and will be better then Gregg. Blanco, is just a great leader.. missing him I guess is more sentimental.

Now I know I went on a rant, and there are plenty of things the team is not doing in order for success to be built around the Jim Hendry plan – like working the count, running the bases well (if we can even get on base in the first place), playing good defense, and using our scouting to its highest potential… but Hendry better make some moves soon, or else we will find ourselves the butt of all jokes once again, and Piniella wont be able to end his career with another WS under his belt.

Bring up young Josh Vitters for an added bench player, pull up Jake Fox from the minors to play left field and toss Soriano at second base, like he said he was willing to do. Soriano has played 764 major league games at 2nd base, and we don't have a true man standing in that spot with Fontenot taking up playing time at 3rd while Ramirez is out, and Ryan Freel is insignificant cause Lou Piniella probably won't play him, which I dont get.. although he is 1-10 so far with the Cubs. Jake Fox is batting .425 with 17 HRs and 50 RBIs in 39 games, WHY THE HELL ISN'T HE UP IN THE BIG LEAGUES!!

Ok well, I will stop my rant here, pardon me for typos and possible errors, I just woke up and started typing, and this was the result. Get your act together Cubs, you're really pissing me off.